The parent application, noted above, teaches a machine and process for making and applying documents to objects, and particularly an order fulfilment, distribution, and inventory control system whereby related documents or control items such as packing slips are made and applied to specific goods. That invention is particularly related to a machine, however, where a pouch or pocket for documents which relate to a specific article is manufactured, and the document is delivered to the packaged article for further handling.
To that end, the parent application discusses the features of such an application of printing and folding documents, the background of that invention, and the details thereof, some of which are either directly related to or supplemental to an understanding of the present invention.
Distribution warehouses, organizations, or carriers who fulfil orders for goods or items to be delivered to customers, generally rely on significant and manually intensive processes, or at best partially automated processes, to create and affix a packing slip for shipment of goods. The document, or a set of documents, must first be created; and those documents will describe the content, warranty, control marks, operation, drawings, destination or address, or other pertinent information or inventory control object or transponder related to the shipment or item. The documents are typically printed on letter size paper, but may be folded up to a size of one sixth of the original size, so as to display the intended destination address but to maintain other information relating to the contents, the costs thereof, and so on, hidden from view until such time as the packaging slip is removed from a pouch. In prior systems, such documents were manually inserted into a translucent adhesive pouch which was affixed to the outside of a package, which could have been a box, bag, or envelope.
The parent invention seeks to overcome the manually intensive process either partially or completely, by using a combination of paper handling devices and providing a specific sequence and control for the provision of documents and the pouch into which they will be placed.
Thus, the parent application teaches an invention which employs single or double rolls of tape, to create a functional container for documents and/or inventory control transponders which may be full sized or folded. By using specific materials, selected adhesive portions, transparency, and markings, a pouch is created by the single or double rolls of tape which may then be used to suit various needs and automation requirements for fulfilment and/or inventory control.
Accordingly, the parent application teaches a machine which accepts documents of various orientations and sizes from common printers, so as to lower fulfilment automation costs. The parent application also teaches a machine which assembles one or more related documents or control items into a set, which may be folded to a smaller size. The intent is to increase usage and to reduce fulfilment costs.
In keeping with the teaching of the parent application, a machine is provided which encloses a set of related documents in an opaque or translucent, adhesive or self-adhesive pouch, envelope, or attachment for a package. The machine is such that the related documents may be moved from a printer, accumulated, folded, enclosed, and applied to a package.
The machine and process in keeping with the parent application teachings comprise an adjustable high speed document receiving station at which various sized documents from common printers will be received. Then, an adjustable accumulator station uses various optical marks and/or software to control the number of documents which are accumulated to form a set, and the movement of that set of documents to further stations. Various industry standard folds may be applied to the document set, which may then be optionally folded further to create a smaller size document set. The orientation of the document set may be controlled.
Then, single or multiple rolls of adhesive or non-adhesive materials are fed to a station to create a container, pouch, or other document attachment device, into which the document set may then be inserted and placed onto a package such as a box, envelope, or bag. Specific teachings of the machine and its process are provided in the parent application, and to the extent that those teachings are relevant to the present invention, they are repeated hereafter.
It should be noted, however, that the entire machine and process are controlled by software, programmable logic controllers, and various sensors which have an additional ability to control or to be controlled by external programmable logic controllers or computers. Similar computer or instruction control means are provided for in the present invention; however, it will be evident that specifics of the computer control are well known to those skilled in that art, and moreover such specifics will apply on a case-by-case basis with respect to the specific product and document fulfilment system which is in keeping with the present teachings, and the manner in which it is employed.
Thus, as will be described in greater detail hereafter, the present invention allows the use of machines and conveyor equipment which are otherwise known, together with software control, sensing components, and the like, so as to provide a fulfilment system which applies labels and the like to discrete articles being shipped. Moreover, the present invention optionally permits the placement of non-discrete articles in the same shipping package, where differing non-discrete articles may be included in different packages in keeping with specific instructions relating to preferences of the recipient of the package to be shipped, either as they have been indicated by that recipient to the packager, or as they are known by the packager from its own database of customer preferences.